Correction officials have unmasked a once-respected owner of a California drug rehab center as a parolee convicted of murder who eluded capture under a fake identity for more than three decades.

Richard Bradford had spent the last 32 years living a double life under the name of James Edward Heard while owning several properties in the Pasadena area including an upscale rehab facility endorsed by the mayor, according to authorities.

Bradford was sentenced to life for first-degree murder in 1971, was paroled in 1978, but skipped out on his parole supervision in 1980, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement on Wednesday.

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Found: Richard Bradford, seen outside his Pasadena drug treatment center, had been living for decades under the false name of James Edward Heard after skipping out on his parole supervision in 1980

Agents arrested Bradford this week, more than 32 years after he had disappeared, the statement said.

A false birth certificate with Heard's name was created in Alameda County in 1977, and a Social Security card was issued to him in 1978, both while he was still in prison, officials said.

By the early 1980s Bradford began using the new name, and the name Richard Bradford disappeared on paper by 1992.

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A parole apprehension team began an investigation into his disappearance in 2010, and about a year later learned he might be the same person as Heard.

Bradford's prison fingerprints were found to be a match with Heard's from the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Bradford's attorney contacted corrections officials at about the same time saying he knew he was being sought and would like some time to turn himself in, but he never did.

New life: Bradford, who was sentenced to life for murder, ran the Eaton Canyon Treatment Center, an upscale rehab facility endorsed by the mayor, seen here

It took investigators two years to
find Bradford, who had been keeping a low profile in the Pasadena area,
with his businesses controlled by a trust and his credit cards and
vehicles in the name of his treatment center, the Eaton Canyon Treatment Center.

On Sunday while conducting surveillance, agents saw Bradford and his wife leave their home and followed them to the Home Depot just east of Pasadena in Monrovia, where they arrested Bradford and his wife.

She was taken into custody for being a felon in possession of pepper spray. Her name was not released.

Speaking to KCALfrom inside the treatment center his wife called the charges against her husband fictitious.

Method: After obtaining a fake birth certificate and social security number under his new name Bradford additionally put his credit cards and vehicles in the name of his treatment center as well, pictured

A search of the house turned up evidence for both of Bradford's names, the statement said.

Corrections officials did not provide the name of Bradford's attorney, and no other contact information to seek comment from a lawyer or family member could be found.

One of Bradford’s neighbors expressed her shock of his true identity calling it 'horrifying' while describing him as a generally angry man.

'He would flick neighbors off who were walking by that he knew were against the group home,' the woman who didn't want to be named told KCAL.

'The thought that that's who that person was, and we were in the same room with him, and in meetings with him, is, it tells you that you really don't know who you're talking to always,' she said.